Easy Way: Not Always Entertain Your Child with Busy Work.

Moments like these I feel like I have been let in on a little secret. Don't you? I love watching children in their natural state playing and perfectly content. Here my son is playing with his Batman umbrella and an old McDonalds Happy Meal box. Doesn't get any better than this on a wet cold rainy day.

It can be exhausting for moms and dads alike to be constantly trying to keep their child engaged and entertained with one thing or another, especially if you have an active child like we do. I remember as a child my mom telling me go outside or your room or something and I looking for her to give me something to do. When she didn't those were the most creative and fun times of my life. I could be anyone, live and do anything, in a world that was all my own, made by me, for me. As an adult I often find myself trying to get back to that place and when I do, that is a happy day. To be able to see your child making that world for themselves truly is a sliver of happiness in life!

 Play truly is the work of children! Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and good morning Monday.

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Quiz: Could YOU Homeschool? Take the Quiz, find out.

I remember the first time the thought crossed my mind about homeschooling a million questions crossed my mind and I wondered "Would I be cut out for this?!?!" Well if you have ever wondered this or perhaps you are just curious as to the results then this is for you.

 Take this quiz and see if homeschooling might be right for you and your family.

CLICK HERE TO TAKE QUIZ 

 

Using Television To Teach Your Child

Son, with completed lap book.

I know there is a big debate about screen time. What is too much? Should there be limits? Even my sons pediatrician mention limiting television time to only two-years, which was very strange to me to hear from his doctor. I never thought about television as being a medical issue. (I will mark that under things that make you go, hmmm!) Well this is  not what I am writing this blog about in case you were wondering, but I am recognizing that this is an issue and I may write about screen time at a later date. This is more about how to use the screen time effectively and in a way your child will like.

My son adores Curious George. I know some parents consider this  twaddle, but I just don't agree. If you have ever watched any of the recent Curious George's you know that at the end of each episode is an educational segment where a teacher is usually doing some type of science project based off the Curious George program that was just watched. Well I noticed my child was fast-forwarding towards this important part. I realized the reason why is because he wasn't personally involved. So I decided to experiment with the concept of doing mini unit studies around programs he was already watching.

Since we use prerecorded programing I scanned the shows he would watch over the week and picked out one or two that I thought I could put together a unit study on without a hiccup. We did this for the first time back in August 2014 and my son enjoyed it so much that we have been continuing with it.

Based off a cartoon about loggerhead turtles.

 This is how we do it:

1. I scan the television programs and pick out one or two (or more if desired) shows that my son and I are interested in. (Example: Wild Kratts: Black footed Ferrets)
2. I Google the topic of the show looking for age appropriate educational materials centered around that study. Sometimes I will pickup additional reading materials at the library on the topic.
3. I print the materials out and sometimes it may include and interactive online game or video.
4. I have my child watch the program.
5. We discuss the program and I introduce the materials to my child. Now we have spent anywhere from an hour to a week studying on of these television based topics.
6. We usually conclude by making everything we did on the unit study into a lap book.

It's a lot of fun and a great way to engage your child, especially if you need to perk things up. Please let me know what is working in your homeschooling classroom in the comments below.



Lap book on Loggerhead Turtles

Easy Peasy...Is it Easy?

Have you heard of Easy Peasy? I think we have settled into Easy Peasy for now as our go to source for phonics and math. My son is not crazy about the phonics, but he really wants to read so he tolerates it and honestly he hasn't liked any phonics program we have tried so far and this one doesn't take too much time and he is grasping some of it.


We are using the McGuffey Primer on the Easy Peasy site for our phonics. I like how it has words to go over with your child three different times per day and a short reading assignment containing those words. We are also doing some flash cards because my son loves stickers and he likes getting a sticker when he masters learning a new word. Not sure that would work with every student, but the stickers do for him. If it wasn't for the stickers he would totally not do the flashcards, let me tell you! This is in addition to our normal reading rituals. (We row books from Five In A Row and do additional reading and activities using the Bible and Bible-based materials).

The Easy Peasy math curriculum he is so excited about. He loves it!  We are using the first grade math. He actually does more of the math then I require of him. He loves the math games and I like how it presents something fresh everyday. He even enjoys the worksheets too, which surprised me.



Enjoying a garden tomato and recording it in his nature journal.

What I like most about Easy Peasy is you can just pick up anywhere and pick and choose what you want to do or you can follow it as a whole. It has a great structure for a complete curriculum. I have read several people say that there isn't enough material and their kid gets done really fast. I just don't find this to be the case for us. My son spends a couple hours playing the math games, we spend about forty-five minutes on the phonics and this is just on these two subjects and doesn't include the time he spends on the worksheets that I usually print-off and he does in the evening with his dad.

Another feature I like is the daily progress chart as sometimes I like to over complicate things and this is so easy, yet so complete. I just X off each day as we complete the assignments and done. I have made one similar for our subjects outside of Easy Peasy as well and thinking of making all-in-one form soon. When I get it done I will share it with all of you here on my blog. The site is really easy to navigate with just enough instructions. There is lots of printable school supplies lists and handwriting sheets. Anyone that is looking for an inexpensive yet quality program should definitely check out Easy Peasy, even if you already have a program there is a lot of supplemental material that could be put to use.

Homeschooling Using Pinterest

Son and I this summer in downtown
Chattanooga, Tennessee.
My real man is behind the camera. LOL.

So usually how I wind down in the evening is either by writing or pinning. Yes pinning on Pinterest. I can't be the only one that pins on pinterest! Of course not or else there wouldn't be so much there. Well this week my little saw me looking at Pinterest and asked me about it and so I explained what it was and how I used it. So he wanted to pin some stuff too. Now mind me, this is my, me time. I am not wanting him to jerk the laptop away from me and I lose the little time I take for myself, but I also didn't want to say no and I knew this wasn't a game or anything that would hold his five year old attention span long.


So this is what I did.  I set up a board this week that is just for stuff we plan to do this school year. Then I allowed my son to go through all of my homeschooling pins I have been collecting and select the ones that interest him the most. Now Pinterest has a feature where you can move pins from one board to another. So that is exactly what I did. I moved the ones that he wanted to do and a few I know he needs now to this current board for this year. He picked some amazing stuff and I think I am just as excited as he is! I am so happy he asked me about Pinterest and we were able to do this together. If you don't already try asking your kids what they want to do for school sometime? I do it often and the answer always surprises in a good way. :-)

Feel free to follow me or any of my boards on Pinterest.

Invest In Your Homeschooling in 2015

What are you doing fresh for your home school this year?

We invested in a  membership to our local science museum, the Tellus. We are all very excited about this. We have already gone twice and I have already lined up so many unit studies around what we will see and do at the museum. I know he will get so much more out of this then any traditional learning we could do. I definitely don't want to be stuck all year at the kitchen table on the computer or doing worksheets of all things!

 Another great thing about getting a membership to a local museum or other educational source is they often have workshops for kids and special events. You can really make the place your secondary classroom. Usually the investment is not that much, especially if you use mostly free resources like we do for curriculum. This allows us to be able to make this investment, not to mention, that the one we joined is a non-profit so our membership is considered a donation and is tax deductible*. It is a win-win if you ask me!

Would love to hear from others about what your homeschooling is adding new this year? Comment below. Your input might help others homeschooling to get outside of the box.

*Of course, always consult with a qualified accountant.

Non-Paid Review: Time4learning Online Program

I have looked into Time4learning several times, but thought my kindergarten/first grader would get bored being online so much as he is very active. But lately he kept asking to get back on ABCmouse and since he has been doing more first grade work I was thinking Time4learning may be a good match for him. I got an email that gave us a two-week trial so I signed him up for the trial.

The first two days he was so excited, but it was a struggle to get him to sit and do it again. I think the program is great for most students. My student is just more mobile and needs to move around and not sit at the laptop and work. He would get frustrated at the amount instructions given because he has a high level of comprehension. I sent Time4learning a email asking if there was someway to fast-forward through the directions, but they replied back that there wasn't. Also sometimes, according to time4learning, we would lose a connection to the Internet for a moment perhaps and the lesson that he just worked on and completed, but it wouldn't give him a check mark that he completed it because of some connection issue, which I am not all together certain of and think may be more of a glitch. He hated the quizzes, but I think there is an option to remove these from the program, as well as the worksheets that he didn't like either. What he absolutely loved was the videos and games and how interactive the material was with him. They were designed much like games.

My little superhero doing some hands-on play learning with this box and another child. Yes, that is a school uniform. Just kidding. But honestly some days it is. :-D

That was my child's review of the program after two weeks and now I will write mine. Time4learning made my job as a homeschooling mom so much easier. I could leave him to work on the program nearly independently except for some of the reading. I actually got a lot done during the times he was on Time4learning. The price is very affordable and the quality of curriculum I thought was very good. My child was learning. I LOVED that it would record in the parental portal how well he done on each activity. The aspects I didn't like were the playground. They were all very educational games, yet the child was limited on how much time and when they could play in them and no progress reports were generated on these aspects of the program. I also didn't find the customizing features very user-friendly. I never did figure out if I was doing that right or not. Again I found the actual material to be great and educational.

In conclusion we decided that  right now this program was not right for my son particular learning style, but I could see using this in the future if he developed more discipline and enjoyed sitting still for longer periods of time. I absolutely love all the freedom it would provide me. I would definitely recommend this program to others who have  different learning styles. So at last this program at this time didn't suit us and my child's needs, but if you are looking for something fresh to try or uncertain give it a try and see how it does for your student(s). They may just love it!

Also want to extend a thank you to Time4learning for providing a great program and extending a 2-week trial to us. Thank you very much!

What is with all the twaddle?

My son age 2, Curious George Party
"Having A Ball"

Recently I was in an online homeschool group who named certain book series as twaddle. What is twaddle? Twaddle to me is books that lacking meaning and are useless. Some of the books they listed as "so called" twaddle were great classics that my son and our family have greatly enjoyed in both the current, as well as when we were children. I guess if I thought hard on the subject I could give a long list of books that I would consider twaddle, but regardless I ask what does it really matter? If your child is reading and enjoying the book does it really matter that whether the book is classic, filled with big important words or has a lesson?

For our family the answer is no. For us it is about the love of reading not content so long as it's healthy. If my son enjoys reading endless amounts of stories about mischievous monkeys or superheros galore or more books on robots I raise the point, HE IS READING. It is not playing xbox or Nintendo. He is not watching television (not that there is anything wrong with any of this either). I think sometimes we as humans develop such strong opinions on what is and what isn't and how this or that should be or shouldn't, but the fact is our reality is not always the reality of others and sometimes it does us a great deal of good just to let go sometimes and enjoy what is actually good in that moment without questioning every detail of whether it conflicts with our personal opinion. Learning can happen anywhere and anytime if we let it happen.

Curious George
image found on google

Our Favorite Homeschooling Resources

Nowadays there are so many resources for homeschooling. It is all just a little crazy, but I find it wonderful at the same time because what it tells me is that homeschooling is becoming so mainstream. As I sit here in the library typing this blog post in the children's department I hear the moms behind talking about what? Yes, homeschooling! The one mom is homeschooling her 2nd and 4th grader and the other mom has homeschooled two children that are now graduated and has one in public school, but is going to start her on homeschool this coming school year. This just shows that many people are realizing how important education is and each child and families needs are different.

Sign up for Summer Reading Program

After 5 years of researching endless homeschool resources I have realized that the simplest things are the best. I know you have heard of KISS, keep it simple sweetie! Well there is no doubt that this applies to homeschool.  So here is my simple list of homeschooling resources:


making monsters at the library

1. Your public library! Yes that is it. It is by far our favorite resource outside of our home and Biblical studies. Your library is like a key to unlocking all kinds of learning  opportunities. Sure you can read books online, on your kindle, on your phone, but nothing is more powerful than having a book in your hands that you can touch, hold, see, smell, read and really sink your teeth into (not literally). The library is so much more than just books. It is really a learning center. Type any topic into the database that your child is interested in and there is the majority of your curriculum for that subject. Most also have computer learning games, story time and loads of fun learning activities and interaction with both adults and youths.

2. Our next favorite and this may even be better than the first is nature. Yes we spend on average four hours a day in nature walks or nature studies, that also includes a lot of play. We have such amazing conversations about all the things we see, hear, feel, smell and sometimes taste. We usually carry a tote bag on our nature walks to bring back treasures we want to research or study more. In addition we carry a journal and pencil so we can draw pictures of things we see and/or make imprints of things.  We keep a nature observatory box on our outdoor table so we can look at all the things we brought back and lay them out so we can further study and discuss them.


Study of Butterfly

Observation of bird eggs in our yard

on top of the mountain

One of our favorite trails



We started nature walks from the very beginning.

There are a lot of things you could add to this list, but if you keep these two basic things in your tool bag of resources, add your Bible Study Program, and you will be very well equipped.

The Homeschooling Style of Unschooling

When I first heard this term unschooled about three years ago, I thought that is CRAZY! Parents actually NOT schooling their children, that is just awful! Well the more I read about it and learned the more I realized my initial perception of what unschooling is was nothing like what I thought. It may make up the 1%, but it has nothing to do with the other 90% - plus. Basically speaking unschooled is just a style of homeschooling. If you spend anytime surfing online you will find, what feels like, a zillion different homeschooling styles. All of it can be a little overwhelming and confusing when you start researching if you let it. I have even found there are different types of unschoolers as well.

(Above, mom and son playing Indians)

So what is an unschooler? Well it varies from one family to the next so I can only speak from our family. A general definition IMO is: An unschooler is a student of life that learns from ones environment, things of interest and persons surrounding them and ones they may meet. Instead of having a teacher a parent is more of a facilitator. Unschoolers are not typically anti-school or anti-education, but just the opposite. They desire for each child to take an active role in their own education and pursue the styles of learning they best relate to and apply them to their interest of study. They do not force or manipulate the student to learn, but help the student to identify his/her love of learning and help them achieve their learning goals.

I have heard many times that unschoolers do not use a curriculum and if that is the case than our family is NOT an unschooled family. Why do I say that? First of all, I hate labels and much prefer to be called Life Learners or learning from home. I like it better than the term unschoolers, but that is just me. I hate the stereotypes labels put on things. Just like my misconception I had in what an unschooler was at the beginning. In general, when someone asks us “oh where does your son go to school?” I reply “we do learning at home. So back to the curriculum. Some of you unschoolers reading this blog post, I hope you are still breathing while you are waiting for my response about the curriculum. (BREATH!) Yes we use a curriculum. My child loves books and loves a lot of hands on activities and learning new things so I do use a curriculum, although (there’s the but) unlike maybe, a traditional school or homeschool there is no force or manipulation to use the curriculum. If my child said I don’t want to read that or do that, then we don’t, simple as that. There is always something else to learn so why teach them something they’re not ready for yet or have no interest in and will never use? I can see some mouths drop off here and saying: But you have to teach IT, what if they are at their job someday and need it? I can answer that, but first I have to ask you a question. Can you remember a time in school when you had to learn something because it was required to pass the class or test and you had no interest in learning it? Do you still remember it? Some of you may answer yes, but I can almost guarantee that the majority of us at on more than one occasion forgot that concept shortly after that class or test was over because it held no importance to us beyond that point. Yes there is some thought in the fact that it may stick, but if they really don’t like it what is the point of making it stick? Just because they know it, they should choose to follow a career to do something they dislike or should they follow their interests and passion and follow a career in that pathway? There may be an argument there to be had, but that is my thoughts on the topic.

(Above chemistry experiments, left: Density Right: solids verses liquids)

I can remember taking Algebra in middle school for advance credit. In order to pass I had to make an A or a B. I really tried hard to learn the concepts as the overachiever that I was. My teacher told me “you’re just not working hard enough”. That was just not true. She offered me after school tutoring, which I jumped at. I brought my score from a D to a C, which was not enough to get credit for. I was proud of my efforts despite still not understanding what I had learned. With the advantage of the tutoring she gave me the skills to pass the test. Did that mean that I finally got it? Far from it! As soon as that test was over my Algebra skills left the building. Years later while in college learning something I was interested in learning I saw an Algebra concept in action and saw a real life example of it. I learned that algebra equation, although I have never put it to use as my interest have changed, the point is if it’s something of interest to you that you desire to know you will learn it when you need it. There is no cut off for learning. My mother is 56 years old and is a college student. She has been in classes ever since I have known her. She is known for breaking electronic devices until they are not even repairable. She took her computer in to a computer repair shop a few months ago and they said “throw it away”. She took a computer class and repaired the computer herself. Why? Because it interest her and she wanted it fixed. We are all natural learners are we not? At least we were until education and test got in our way.

(Below, Five in A Row, Study of Paris, France, Madeline)

So our little natural learning, unschooling-homeschooling family uses Five in a Row and additional curriculum as well. My child loves it at this point keeps asking for more and more. We also do a lot of Charlotte Mason style learning like nature walks and nature journals and collecting and natural reading. My son loves doing workbooks sometimes too, so you will often see us working in a school workbook. My child LOVES anything hands-on. Last week he was really into volcanoes so I checked out a bunch of books from the library on volcanoes and we learned all about them and built our own volcano. This week I found a chemistry set and every day we have been a different chemistry experiment. Today we read a book about Japan, located Japan on the map, talked about the geography of Japan and the culture and distance from Japan to us here in the USA. He doesn’t recognize that he is doing “school” like most traditionally schooled children because there is not division between our life and school. He is learning every day from the things we call “life” and the intentional persons, places and things we put into our environment as well.  Sometimes, because I am have to retrain my thinking as well, I will say this is for school and our son will ask “that was school?” Ha-ha! He really has no idea what is school and what is not because he is a natural learner and whether he realizes it or not everything is a learning experience and we are all being “schooled” every day, intentionally or unintentional.

 (Below, Study on Volcanoes)